caterwauls are my screams in the night from the back fence,
aimed at the inequitable situations in our present society and the ridiculousness of life's paths........
With a little silliness too . . . for sanity.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Noise pollution is proven to have devastating results on one's health and well being.In Vancouver that potential could eventually have disasterous results. No one seems to enforce whatever anti-noise bylaws we have. Noise is simply not taken seriously. Vancouver seems to be proud of the fact that people of all ages are moving back into the Vancouver core. However it is almost impossible to have any peace and quiet because of the noise levels.Construction equipment have no muffling devices on their engines. Bull dozers, pile drivers, hard rock drills, jackhammers, graders and excavators all make maximum noise. Dump trucks blast their horns at anyone in their way to the site. The coffee trucks arrive with a blare. Delivery drivers leave their deisel engines running while delivering or dropping into coffee shops. Buses grind a grating clatter in passing. Brakes squeal. It is accepted that shouting is okay. Recently a local patio bar had a DJ with a loud mic, encouraging the partying patrons to "Let's make some noise out there!"Another guy was moonlighting from his day job and would turn up at 8:30 PM and start a jackhammer to bust up concrete!One cannot listen to music during the day if you live in a downtown apartment. Movie companies must now consider carefully if they can shoot in the core because the noise levels don't allow them to pick up clean dialogue. Offices must sweat with their windows closed. Overly sensitive car alarms are always shrill and annoying. And they are often set off by those Harleys with their drilled baffles. We hear every gear change and echo of the pipes for miles. And if you've got a Starbucks near your area you'll never sleep in again. The garbage trucks collect at 6 am, banging and clanging, every day including weekends and compress in a cacophony of irritating sound.The business oriented city controllers accept this constant barrage of noise during the day and retreat to their suburbs in the evenings. 'Business' has precedence.

The World Health Organization suggests that noise can affect human health and well-being in a number of ways, including annoyance reaction, sleep disturbance, interference with communication, performance effects, effects on social behaviour and hearing loss. Noise can cause annoyance and frustration as a result of interference, interruption and distraction. Activity disturbance is regarded as an important indicator of the community impact of noise.Vancouver is encouraging families to move into the downtown core, yet children are affected by noise too with increased blood pressure levels and attention deficits!Continued exposure to noise is also associated with a range of possible physical effects including: damaging your hearing, colds, changes in blood pressure, other cardiovascular changes, increased general medical practice attendance, problems with the digestive system and general fatigue. Research into the effects of noise on human health indicates a variety of health effects. People experiencing high noise levels differ from those with less noise exposure in terms of increased number of headaches, greater susceptibility to minor accidents, increased reliance on sedatives and sleeping pills, and increasedmental hospital admission rates.Ah .... there's the thing.Road rage is now understood by commuters everywhere. And even has its own label now from psychologists, (because that's what they DO) Intermittent Explosive Disorder.William Kunstler introduced the 'black rage' defense into law courts.Soon we'll have people losing it totally and committing serious crimes of harm. Actress Demi Moore, responding to an ongoing car alarm outside her house in the dead of night, went out and SHOT the car!The 'noise rage' defense will be here soon, and I for one, will understand it.Case dismissed, Miss Moore.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Do we actually LOOK for stuff to confirm the Campbell government's deception and sneakiness? You bet we do.Consider this little speculation:Aside from the protesters up there on Eagleridge Bluffs in West Van. Will there be bumper-to -bumper cars travelling to Whistler in 2010? Will folks from Kansas tackle that precarious road in the dead of winter? Why do we even need a NEW road through there for a two week event? Well, let us tell you why.There are billions of dollars in development land up there. Already owned by someone. We don't know who. But when you want to develop a land area and fill it with houses, the developer must pay to have the roads built to ACCESS his property. To go in and do that at the top of Eagle Ridge would cost millions of dollars! Not to mention that it would have massive resistance by a lot of people to such a PRIVATE development. BUT, if the government (read Gordon Campbell) builds a road through the area at TAXPAYER's cost, the developer then has only to throw in a few access roads and viola! Cool BILLIONS in profits that cost little to achieve.The Olympics? One of the events you'll be paying for into the 22 century. What a great cover to fill someone's pockets!

Do we think this is sneakiness and deception to aid Gordon's buddies? Do we think there might be something else entirely going on up at Eagleridge Bluffs? You bet we do. Wouldn't you like to see Kevin Falcon answer a few pointed questions on this?One would almost think that SOMEONE in the present government has a secret bank account somewhere. Maybe we'll check out who went to the Bahamas.Too bad we don't have any investigative reporters in BC.

UPDATE:Evidently some reporters are beginning to puzzle over Kevin Falcon's motives for the Eagleridge Bluffs route. Some are asking why the cheaper, easier and logical third lane past Horseshoe Bay proposal wasn't considered? Others are finding information and questioning Kevin Falcon's associations. He was involved in real estate. His political contributions come from real estate developers. The community consultant for British Pacific Properties is the husband of West Vancouver Liberal MLA Joan McIntyre. Etc etc.Do we see a sneakiness here? Is he a Liberal?You KNOW that eventually, when the road goes through, that Mr Falcon will be saying that we got off easy and only had to compensate British Pacific Properties by giving them free access roads for going through their territory. Then he'll probably tell us what a great job he did.We'll be watching to see if he flies off to the Bahamas for a holiday.

UPDATE 2:Some are even looking into the new Gateway project of adding a twin bridge at Port Mann. After a study showed that real estate prices will skyrocket in Abbotsford, Langley, North Surrey and Fort Langley. Most experts including David Suzuki have agreed that adding more roads only fills up the pipeline again, ala Los Angeles, and transit is the only way. Skytrain could easily be built right into the median all the way to Chilliwack but that wouldn't help property values, would it.One would sort of want to know who has bought what land in that corridor, wouldn't one?

Methinks we might have to start putting BC Government actions under our heading for "Conspiracy Theories" soon.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Sure some of those UFO people are Trekkies, wishing to get beamed up. Others are google-eyed and so desperate to see anything up there that they DO see something up there. Others are wearing tin hats and tuning in the universe. Then there are the rest of us, open to anything and just observing whatever might be there.In March, 1997, I was at a summer home, watching the skies at about 11:00 pm. There are hundreds of satelites going by on any given night and anyone can see them twinkling up there. I was looking southwest, toward the constellation Cassiopeia. There are 5 main stars, but as I looked at it, 3 'stars' that seemed to be part of it began moving east. These lights were in a triangular formation and moved fairly slowly across the sky, eventually disappearing in the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Dipper. These were not satellites as they don't glide by in formation. I even called a NASA office in Seattle and they had no explanation, but confirming that no 3 satellites would move in unison. I learned later that many people around the world had seen this formation of lights and believed it to be a huge craft, including many in Belgium and Moscow.Then in 2002, summer, I was driving into Vancouver on the #1 highway through Burnaby at about 2:00 in the afternoon and near Central park, we observed a black oval shaped object in the sky ahead, not so much of an object as a shape in the sky. It was slightly east of Central Park and it appeared to be several thousand feet up.I can only describe it as though it was a pipe in the sky with a black hole in it and yet one couldn't see the 'pipe', only the dark entrance. This did not move or vary as we drove along the highway. At Willingdon Ave, we pulled off the highway and looked up. There were other cars doing the same thing, I'd say about 25 of them, including an RCMP cruiser and the two constables were also out of their car looking up. It was definitely NOT a balloon or kite or aircraft. It stayed perfectly still the whole time we watched it. About a month later I met a woman who had also seen it from another area, she was going the opposite way with her teenaged son.If you do see something, there is now a place to report it. The owner of the website, Brian Vike, is simply a regular guy who wants to be alerted when people observe strange objects in our skies, and he is providing the space to do it.http://www.hbccufo.org/index.php

Check it out, you might be amazed at how much activity is going on around BC. And you might be interested if something has been sighted in your area. This IS the greatest place in our world to live, perhaps other beings are realizing it too.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

The BMO refuses to be called the Bank of Montreal because, like RBC Group, (Royal Bank of Canada) they don't want to be associated with 'banks' that post obscene profits each quarter.

But anyway, this is how they are aiding fraud and identity theft, at least here in BC;. . . Say you sell something you didn't want anymore ... the guy you sold it to gives you a cheque, so quite naturally you go down to his bank to cash it. Besides taking 5 bucks off the top like those shysters cash services down on Hastings street, this is what they do:They demand your credit card and driver's licence for ID ... THEN, THEY ACTUALLY WRITE THIS INFORMATION ON THE BACK OF THE CHEQUE! The guy eventually will get that cheque back in his possession and voila! he'll have YOUR credit card number and driver's licence number! At a time when identity theft is rampant throughout North America!Is this the stupidest policy that could ever happen or what? The women teller who wanted to do this said they ALWAYS do it that way! She also asked for the Social Insurance number!Is this the kind of bank YOU want to deal with?Not me either.

Funny how Microsoft was twice threatened by the US government and then it all disappeared. (do a search on this blog for 'conspiracy' and read the earlier post.) And now some are wondering what secret software might be installed in Windows XP.Now if you'll notice, Google has grown at a phenominal rate, to the point of being a competitor to Microsoft. Their search engines find everything and they are two thirds ahead of Microsoft in that regard. So wouldn't the US government start to twitch and want to know what all those searches the citizens do are about? What are they searching for?Hmmm.Now if you'll notice, the US government has issued federal subpoenas for those search enquiries.I don't wonder why ... do you?

Thursday, May 11, 2006

NSA, the National Security Agency in the United States, is apparantly monitoring the phone calls of Americans throughout the country. AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth have been turning over their phone records to the government, showing ALL citizens' phone calls to each other.I don't mean the earlier actions of listening in to calls without proper legal warrants that they started recently, (approved by George Bush) of people who they deem potential terrorists, I mean just building a database of EVERYONE for whatever reasons they want to use.As you know, the Homeland Security Act allows the government to do this without even telling you. What does it mean to Canadians? US Bell is the parent company of Bell Canada. They also fall under the catagory of control by NSA. Draw your own conclusions.I'm sticking with Telus.

BC Ferries, because they are calling themselves a PRIVATE corporation now, say they don't have to adhere to the Freedom of Information Act, and are refusing to release information about the recent Queen of the North ferry crash. They also won't allow reporters to see safety check information on other BC ferries.We all know that suppressing information only results in speculations and guesses as to what happened.Some scenarios can be very wild;

... whispering ..."Okay, Captain's gone to his cabin to sleep.""Mmm, c'mere you big hunk officer you.""Set the autopilot, Babe.""'Okay ... hey, don't tear my blouse like last time.""Sorry. Sheez, you're so sexy when you take off your uniform.""Remove your glasses, Sweetie, there's nothing to see in this dark.""Mmblnnmff.""Oh yes, like that.""Mmm. Is that ship's engines or my pulse pounding?""Gawd yes! YES!""Yes!""I'm coming! I'm cominggggggggggg!"Clang! CLANG! Buzzz! BUZZZZZZ! RrrrRRRRRrrRRRRRrrrrr! CLANG!"Wow! That felt like an earthquake! Even on water!""Oh my gawd, that was the best yet!""Hey, what's that?""An island?""Didn't you set the ..."ABANDON SHIP! ABANDON SHIP!

Some seem to be thumbing their noses at the very people who are supposed to OWN these ferries.Tell us the truth, BC Ferries, and we won't have to make stuff up.

update: Feb 2007 - BC Ferries says there was sex going on when the Queen of the North crashed and sunk.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Keith Richards is going to get his skull drilled into to relieve a potential blood clot in his brain. He recently fell out of a coconut tree. He also fell off a ladder once at his home while reaching for a book in his library! One might think he fell out of his baby carriage too.

We can only wonder what would have happened if Keith had had his brain drilled 30 years ago?Would he be a ukelele playing Salvation Army Major today? A Clockwork Orange transformation?Would he?.... Nah ....

In a later follow up report, responding to newspaper speculations, it was said that Keith did NOT need a second operation and that no brain damage had been done.Would we know?

Friday, May 05, 2006

If you do your census on line, you'll be giving your private information to Lougheed Martin.As a result of NAFTA, the creation of the hardware and software for the Canadian census is contracted out to the Canadian subsidiary of the US armament corporation Lockheed Martin.As a result of the USA Patriot Act and the USA Homeland Security Act, all US companies and their subsidiaries wherever they are located are required on demand (on pain of heavy penalty for refusal), to release to the US Homeland Security all data held. No foreign law (i.e., Canadian) overrides the application of the USA statutes in the USA. Further, the US Patriot Act forbids any company from even telling you that your most private information has been compromised.Even if you fill out the form properly and mail it in, the scanning software has also been developed by Lougheed Martin.Therefore, we do not recommend that you ignore the census, only that you do NOT do it online, or when you fill in the form, you write in answers instead of checking the little boxes, and make notations on the form. This will prevent it from being scanned and a real person, a Canadian, will access the information about you.Lougheed Martin is a huge weapons manufacturer and technology company in America that works for the US Department of Defense, and others, with many divisions including Intelligence, surveillance and reconaisance. Systems integration is one of their strong suits. Their motto is - We never forget who we're working for. You can be sure it isn't Canadians.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

John Furlong, the chief executive officer of Vanoc, has signed a cooperative agreement with Quebec, premier John Charest announced.What? Whyever for? asks the Humble Observer.The agreement pledges collaboration on sport. Sure okay, so what's the problem? Wait. It also pledges collaboration on culture, the French language, economic developement, volunteers and employment, and here's the shocker, training for Quebec government employees! Do you believe it?Yes I do, says the Humble Observer, because Furlong has declared himself King.And the Olympic committee has already been accused of hiding the true costs of the Olympics. Vanoc will also open a Quebec office in Montreal. Furlong didn't even tell the Federal government what he was doing. Well whatever for? He is King of the Olympics, why would he?So, Furlong has created an inukshuk as the emblem for the Olympics. You know what an inukshuk is, of course, it is now the icon of the territory of Nunavut, in Canada's far north, and is used as a marker in the Arctic. Nunavut 2010, be there! Bring your longjohns.Furlong was also criticized for his Olympic closing ceremony, when he had the chance to show off Canada and BC to millions. Alas, he showed us as ice fishers to the world. Perhaps he'll make it an Olympic event.Perhaps Mr. Furlong has been reading too much Rudyard Kipling, The Man Who Would Be King, ...... "and there the matter rests".

ICBC just announced an 157 million dollar profit for the first quarter. But they just put the rates up? Yes, and they'll go up more too. In spite of large profits. Want to know the real reason why?Because private insurance companies cannot compete with ICBC. They only get the scraps of peripheral insurance right now. The add-ons. They NEED to have higher rates from ICBC to allow them to compete for basic insurance too.Gordon Campbell, (oh no, he's not going to blame Campbel again) has too many friends in the private sector, he needs to get the rates up to where the private insurers can get in on those profits too.Once we all start complaining about ICBC rates he'll allow his private company buddies in to compete against ICBC, and they'll cherry pick all the best accident free drivers and leave us taxpayers with the bad ones.

Monday, May 01, 2006

What a time that was! The party of a lifetime. 172 sunny days of fun. 20 years ago. We had a different attitude then. We were so rightly proud of ourselves. We could be the best.We had Premier Bennett at the helm, who believed British Columbians could do anything. He would never have considered selling BC Rail, that was OURS, there to develop the whole vast province! BC Hydro would never have been bypassed for foreign power projects. BC Ferries was our navy, run proudly by British Columbians, Bill Bennett would never have considered building ships anywhere but BC. He would never have allowed gambling in our BC Pavillion.How things have changed. 'Something's happening here' has a whole new meaning now, doesn't it?Try not to cry.